Predictions for 2017
By Eric Newcomer
The future is unknowable and usually stranger than expected. As Winston Churchill once said, “I always avoid prophesying beforehand because it is much better policy to prophesy after the event has already taken place.”
But if other people want to try to play soothsayer, is it wrong of me to goad them into it? I asked our newsletter readers, along with a bunch of other smart people, to offer up some “specific, falsifiable and telling predictions about 2017.” Many guesses failed to cross the falsifiable threshold, but otherwise I think the predictions are pretty interesting. While no one can predict with certainty what the universe will throw at us next year, these should at least let you know what to watch out for.
Blake Irving, chief executive officer of GoDaddy: “In 2017, Uber’s autonomous vehicle trials in the U.S. will spark a national conversation on the economic dangers of applied AI automation that will drive a shift in the 1099 economy from its immature state (where today workers have minimal stability) toward a more mature state of federated work where individuals take greater control of their financial futures.”
“Instagram will launch a Spectacles competitor, but it will be a monocle.”
Rebecca Kaden, general partner at Maveron: “2017 will be the year that breakout consumer commerce brands break away from leading with convenience first — and may even be purposefully inconvenient. With ‘what you want, when you want it, with the touch of a button’ now reading like a customer’s right, there will be a turn towards stunt and event driven brands that trade ease for scarcity, discovery, surprise and even difficulty as a way to build buzz and sell product. At the end of 2016, we saw the start of this with Kylie’s LA mall pop-up and Snap Inc.’s Spectacles vending machines, but in 2017 this will be ubiquitous.”
Rob Hayes, partner at First Round Capital: “Instagram will launch a Spectacles competitor, but it will be a monocle.”
Othman Laraki, co-founder and CEO of biotech startup Color Genomics: “Moore’s Law will continue to disrupt industries far beyond technology.”
Steve Carlin, general manager and vice president at SoftBank Robotics America: “Robotics is getting a lot of buzz, but many uses are extremely limited in functionality. The promise of robots as ‘human helpers’ hasn’t yet been brought to life. But that is set to change in 2017. With U.S. businesses looking for better ways to engage with customers and humanoid customer service robots poised to enter American retail environments, 2017 is on track to be the year a robot will help customers pick paint colors or find items in the grocery store.”
Gill Haus, managing vice president at Capital One: “The biggest driver of change in 2017 will be the ability to rapidly deploy highly scalable machine learning and transaction processing systems while not having to worry about compliance and security.”
Stuart Frankel, co-founder and CEO of Narrative Science: “Design will begin to evolve to help increase our trust in AI — if people don’t trust AI, they won’t use it. In the next year, designers will begin to apply knowledge of human interaction, specifically in the area of how we earn trust and respect, to AI systems. Elements of communication like tone, sentiment, timing, visual cues and word choice combined with AI technologies like natural language generation that increase transparency into how these systems operate will play a role in helping users trust and rely on AI systems.”
“I believe we’ll be more likely shopping for personalities similar to the way we hire people to work for us.”
Jonathan Badeen, co-founder and chief strategy officer at Tinder: “Eventually all of our devices will be assistant-ready, so instead of a specific device being the focal point, it’s everything around us that is actually given a voice — from our coffee makers to our TVs, to the phones in our pockets and our inevitable AR wearables. I believe we’ll be more likely shopping for personalities similar to the way we hire people to work for us.”
Pasquale Romano, president and CEO of electric vehicle charging provider ChargePoint: “2017 is set to be one of the most significant years in automotive tech as more new in-vehicle innovations make their way into the hands of consumers.”
Ash Ashutosh, founder and CEO of data management startup Actifio: “With 2016 seeing an influx of Chinese companies like Huawei, Xiaomi and Tencent expanding to the U.S. market, more companies than ever are wanting a piece of the pie. In 2017, we’ll continue to see an explosion of Chinese companies coming to stake their claim in the U.S. market as well, offering low-cost, commoditized versions of other tech products to accelerate their growth.”
Hans Tung, managing partner at GGV Capital: “Tech in the U.S. will spread to red states. Silicon Valley tech companies will start investing in building up research and development centers in red states with good state colleges.”
Bradley Tusk, founder of Tusk Ventures and former mayoral campaign manager for Michael Bloomberg, the founder of Bloomberg LP: “The momentum on cannabis tech and legalization will halt as the Department of Justice no longer turns a blind eye to what’s happening in states. Prosecutions, investigations, raids and greater enforcement create uncertainty in states where cannabis is legal and slows momentum for legalization elsewhere.”
Jerry Chen, partner at Greylock: “The new administration in DC allows tech companies to repatriate billions of cash, which leads to more tech M&A.”
Lucian Iancovici, senior investment manager at Qualcomm Ventures: “President Obama’s Affordable Care Act provided health care startups with a fertile market, but this could change with the election of Donald Trump, who promises to repeal the ACA. With the ACA under attack, healthcare startups are at a crossroads. We expect 2017 will bring new regulations that will be challenging for young companies to thrive under. As startups try to redefine how they fit into the new healthcare landscape, there will likely be consolidation of smaller companies in the sector.”
Ed Kutler, from Philadelphia: “I predict at least 60% of the predictions will be significantly wrong.”
This originally appeared in Bloomberg Technology’s newsletter Fully Charged.Sign up here.
